The Beginning of a Beautiful Rebound
by girl undone
Summary: Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko bumps into Commander Rachel Shepard and Garrus Vakarian in he landing docks at the Citadel. Broken bones ensue and Kaidan meets Yeoman Chambers. Non-Shenko. Contains violence, vomiting, cursing, and inter-species dating.


Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

A/N: I'm new to uploading to , so please accept my apologies as my stories disappear and reappear as I edit them. I also am without a beta reader right now, so all mistakes are my own. Thanks for reading!

* * *

Her ungloved fist connected with Kaidan's face with multiple, bone-crunching snaps, creating blue spangles in his vision that he knew weren't from an aura preceding a migraine or a particularly powerful biotic burst.

"Shepard!" Garrus growled, throwing an arm over her shoulders, across her collarbone to drag her away from the human male spewing red blood out his nostrils before she could strike again. They were standing in front of the airlock for the Normandy outside of the Citadel. The last thing they needed was C-Sec on the case. On _their_ case.

Commander Rachel Shepard's chest heaved, but she didn't try to struggle out of Garrus' grasp. Her heart was thudding so hard against her ribs that she was distracted by the thought they might break, unaware her own fingers were quickly swelling into purple sausages, splattered with hot human blood, his and hers, that looked gauche with her little black dress.

So much for 'date night'.

Kaidan groaned thickly, feeling as though his throat and head were filling with the same blood that was pouring out of his nose. He tried to pinch the bridge, but pain blinded his vision once more. "You broke my nose, Shepard!" he literally blurted out. He couldn't quite make any muscle in face work properly.

"You're lucky it wasn't your balls!"

"I _said_ I was sorry!"

She made a lunge for him again, but Garrus held her tightly to his chest. Somewhere in the back of her head, she was beginning to feel his talons pressing into her bare shoulder and her hand throbbing dully.

"Maybe it would be better if you didn't say anything else for now." He felt Shepard relax into him a little. He knew the reverberations from his chest calmed her and it was that thought that gave him the ability to speak calmly and not release her to break another piece of Alenko's anatomy. Personally, he wanted to- what was the word she used? Slug the Staff Commander himself. He was on Horizon. He knew about the email. What was the human possibly thinking by trying to talk to Shepard now?

Kaidan glared at his former crewmate from his rapidly blackening eyes, then sighed, wincing at the effort. He couldn't believe she was dating him.

No, he could. He remembered, before she was spaced, before Ilos even, the way she always draped herself against the Mako the turian was always tinkering with, her hips angled out just so. Bantering, laughing. _She never laughed like that with me. Stupid, _stupid _Alenko_, he thought. _I should have known_. _But, dammit, I loved her! How could she! Why did she use me like that? I told her how I felt!_

He was raging now, though he was beginning to have trouble breathing. His felt his prided self-control slipping. He wanted to smash their faces. _How could she keep betraying him like this?_

Garrus understood violence well. He understood the need for sparring, to relieve stress and tension, sexual or otherwise. But he also understood that Kaidan was about to lose his footing and Rachel's hand resembled a pulsing Scion's sac.

So much for 'date night'.

"Joker, is Dr. Chakwas still on board?" Garrus had commed into the Normandy as he rubbed Rachel's arm, hoping she didn't fight him on this one. She didn't and he wasn't surprised. She just nodded dully and murmured, still with venom, "I've wasted medi-gel on Batarians who spit in my face. I can't exactly pull rank with you on this."

Kaidan tried to snort, then gave an excruciating groan. "Nice, _Commander._"

Rachel lurched- or tried to- still trapped in Garrus' grasp. "Oh, that's it-!"

"Enough!" the Gunnery Officer roared. "You're both acting like baby krogans."

Suddenly, Rachel laughed, a little hysterically. She felt the searing pain in her hand and was beginning to feel a bit badly about Kaidan's nose and, more so, Garrus missing actual dextro-amino food that didn't resemble blue jelly.

Joker, unfortunately, had heard this entire exchange and answered with a laugh, "Yeah. Probably nipping at her 'swoon bottle' with Gardner." Then, suddenly suspicious, "Why? Is the Commander all right?" He was confused about the 'baby krogans' retort, not having heard Kaidan and aware Grunt was still on board. "Are those krogans after fish again or something?"

Rachel was still laughing as though she had just seen the vid _C-Sec_. "Craptastical," she had called it. Garrus remembered asking her explain. _"I love vids that are so crappy that they're funny. Craptastical." _But her laughter was verging on something else. This wasn't clearly wasn't craptastical. It was downright crappy.

He sighed over the comm, keeping an eye on Kaidan, who had wavered and then grabbed purchase on the ad screen nearby. He rubbed Rachel's arm again, not unaware of the fact that her shaking in that dress while she was pressed against him was doing all sorts of very inappropriate things to her body and his body in completely different ways. He shook his head and kept his focus on the disgusting bloody nose of the Staff Commander instead before Shepard noticed. "Uh, well, the Commander broke her hand and Staff Commander Alenko's nose."

Rachel stilled, looking down at her hand as though she had never noticed it before. "Oh," she said quietly. "That's why it was starting to hurt." At the same time, Joker replied, enthused, "Damn straight! Er, well, not about her hand, obviously. I'll tell Dr. Chakwas to set up."

"Joker," Garrus began, "Make that two beds."

"Oh, hell no, Garrus! He's not coming aboard _my_ ship!"

Garrus caught Kaidan's eye by accident. He probably knew what the pilot was saying. _Spirits, why did_ _nothing ever go right? Well, _he reconsidered, looking down at the strawberry blonde woman he held against himself, _not_ everything _went wrong_.

Shepard had regained control of herself. She suddenly felt exhausted. Rage, she supposed, along with a few broken bones would do that. "Joker," she spoke up into her own comm. "I know. Really. I. Know. But I think he's going to faint."

"I'm not going to-!"

"- and I really did break his face. So let's just at least patch him up. Tell Yeoman Chambers to be on hand." Garrus looked down at her suspiciously. She was still angry, despite her calm, commanding voice. His mandibles flared in what could only be a turian smirk. She replied with a smirk back.

Kaidan looked utterly confused (and very pale under his olive complexion) as Shepard mentioned this Yeoman and laughed at something Joker said over the comm. She broke off the link and straightened up. Garrus relinquished his hold from her with regret, but quickly snaked his arm around her waist. Kaidan felt sick and he didn't know if it was because the former love of his life was shagging his former friend and squad mate or because she broke his nose, or both. And now he had to face the former Alliance pilot whose face _he_ wanted to smash, and a crew of terrorists. This was worse than an asarian date movie. His head was spinning. The Citadel was spinning. No, it didn't matter why he was sick, because suddenly he _was_ sick. All over the side of the ad screen. The Keeper nearby didn't notice.

* * *

Kaidan sat up on a bed in the med-bay, arms crossed, scowling defiantly as Dr. Chakwas cleaned up after herself. She had set and wrapped Shepard's hand with an admonishment and quickly hurried her out of the room to set Kaidan's nose. She had tried to speak to him, but the former LT, with whom she had been on such good terms with before she left the Alliance, was in a decidedly bad mood. She supposed, on reflection as she left the room to him and the eager Yeoman Chambers, running into your ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend and then having her break your nose could do that to any male, no matter the size of his ego

Now Kaidan was sulking as he waited for this 'Yeoman Chambers' to stop talking. Joker hadn't been in his pilot's seat when he came through the airlock, which was a mixed blessing._ Probably gone to hide under Shepard's ridiculously short skirt_, he thought bitterly.

"... and the Commander said she was fine, but I could tell she wasn't. You know?" The girl apparently had a degree in psychology but didn't seem to be aware of doctor-patient confidentiality. She was telling Kaidan about Shepard's reaction to seeing him on Horizon and he was only half-listening. The pulsing of bridge of his noise, the thrum of a migraine rearing its ugly head, and his blood boiling over past and present situations with the aforementioned Commander was beginning to make it impossible for him to keep from shuddering blue sparks. He grunted in reply, willing his biotics down.

"I think she was heart-broken. I mean... well... I probably shouldn't be telling you this, Staff Commander-"

"Kaidan," he offered inanimately.

"Oh! Call me Kelly! Well, I really _shouldn't_ be telling you this..."

_But you will, _Kaidan grimaced to himself. Poor girl. She just wanted someone to talk to. Was this what Garrus had seemed so smug about? What Shepard and Joker had laughed about? Some pretty girl who just wanted to talk to people? He would never understand any of them...

"But she wrote one hundred and eight replies to your email and never sent them! One hundred and eight!" Kelly's voice rose an octave, but Kaidan didn't notice. Something had just dawned on him.

_"I never understood her. I thought I loved her, but I never knew anything about her. Her life on Earth, how she grew up, was she ever happy? Her time on Akuze… How could she work for these people knowing they'd set that up? How could I love someone who never let me in anywhere but her body? Maybe what she said back there was right. Maybe I didn't love her, but the _idea _of her... We all put her on a pedestal. Except for Joker. And Garrus doesn't seem to now, either. Maybe…_

Kelly's voice was beginning to drown out his thoughts, "Of course, you never received any of them because she accidentally smashed her terminal. Well, she _said_ it was an accident, but looking at your poor nose, I doubt it!"

Kaidan suddenly looked at the Yeoman as though for the first time. She was flushed with rapid speech, but it didn't clash with her lively red pixie cut. He could appreciate good hair maintenance. She bright green looked so concerned for him, all over a broken nose. Had Shepard ever looked that concerned over him? He couldn't remember. He found his voice, still thick, but stronger. Solider. Not an smidgen of a pitch higher than it should be. "I've had a lot worse than a broken nose, Kelly." He offered a smile, as though to prove it didn't hurt a bit.

The red-head blushed as the still-handsome-if-slightly-swollen-and-bandaged Staff Commander put on a brave front for her. "Of course you have, Staff Commander," _Her_ voice dropped an octave.

Kaidan noticed.

"Kaidan," he replied, lowering his voice as he met her eyes. "Call me Kaidan."

Kelly smiled impishly and scooted closer to him, abandoning her OSD and tales of Commander Shepard and The Smashed Terminal for a more... personal consultation.


End file.
